


LoVe

by TheMsource



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dreamtale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Farmtale (Undertale), Angst, Awkwardness, Axe is tired, Bad Sanses | Nightmare's Gang (Undertale), Boundaries What Are Those?, Comedy, Comfort, Ecto-Genitalia (Undertale), Eventual Smut, Fighting, Fluff, Horror Is Called Axe, Kinda, Loneliness, Love/Hate, M/M, Mentions of Starvation, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Multi, No beta we dust like monsters, Other, Papyrus (Farmtale) - Freeform, Polyamory, Romance, Rottencrop - Relationship, Sans (Dreamtale) - Freeform, Sans (Dusttale) - Freeform, Sans (Farmtale) - Freeform, Sans (Horrortale) - Freeform, Sans-turbation, Serious, Swearing, Virgin Sans (Undertale), awful attempts at flirting, dark themes, dubious touching, if you can call it that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:33:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMsource/pseuds/TheMsource
Summary: Dusty lifted his cruel grin free of his scarf to shoot him a sultry and hot smirk, the intent behind it thick and rolling.Welp, this was awkward as hell.
Relationships: Dust/Horror, Dust/Horror/Saejun, Horror/Saejun, Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	1. Shot Through The Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing this kind of thing (SansxSans) and I hope it's an interesting read!  
> I was inspired by two very good friends of mine, Dani and Moonie <3

Axe let out a sigh as he plopped unceremoniously onto the dining room couch, his phalanges clutching a sandwich as thick as a baseball bat and with little care to the ketchup running the length of his bony digits as he flipped on the tv.

Another day of boredom, another day trapped in Nightmare’s castle.

Honestly he didn’t know what the tentacled monstrosity saw in him to crave Axe’s servitude but he wasn’t complaining as he bit into his food with a near stifled moan. The tomatoes nearly melted on his tongue and the pickles had just the right amount of fresh crunch as his flat teeth cut through them. No matter how many times he ate it was always an experience after seven years of starvation.

“And in other news the monster embassy--” 

His single red eye trailed up to the slightly static infused screen as he slurped the juice from his lower jaw and took another large bite, his bones going lax as the magic in his joints loosened up. That was another advantage to having willingly stepped out of his timeline, endless amounts of channels, apparently the dark lord’s realm was inherently prone to picking up multiversal television signals. 

It only slightly made him miss Papyrus and his endless Mettaton marathons.

“Good day with the boss?” 

He paused in his chewing to glance over as Killer fell next to him, well as near as the knife obsessed lunatic was willing to go, last time he’d gotten too close he’d almost lost an arm. Axe hadn’t known that his baritone could go so shrill before the way Killer had floundered with his ulna trapped between his jaws. 

He’d laughed about that for days.

Axe grunted in reply, short and curt. He may have worked with his other darker counterparts, but he was by no means friends with them to bother giving an actual answer. Not that Killer would have cared either way. He turned his attention back just as he heard something about a new monster museum opening up causing him to quirk a brow. 

It never failed to amaze him the way humanity welcomed their species with open arms, all smiles and nothing but thoughtful effort in helping the monsters acclimate to life on the surface with each timeline he witnessed.

Well, for the _majority_ of the time. Rarely was there an exception.

Axe’s thoughts twisted as the hole in his head painfully itched, and his sentiment turned bitter. He couldn’t help thinking about the monsters from his timeline, and what they could’ve had if they hadn’t all turned into a bunch of crazed freaks. He didn’t doubt for a second, if they were ever lucky enough to get out, that his people wouldn’t end up lumped in with the scant amount of universes not welcomed.

Too often people judged by looks, too often those that were clearly abused and suffering were labeled as miscreants and rejected, all because they didn’t fit in with society's expectations or exposed a horrible truth everyone would rather be ignorant of.

He was sure he’d be labeled a demon on sight the moment the sun touched his face.

Axe was a bad guy sure, he’d never deny that, but only because he’d been given the role long before Nightmare had come to him in the dead of night, offering a reprieve from the starvation, and the endless monotony of having to watch as his fellow monsters turned to grey grit and clouded ash. 

If there was one thing that he could hold on to, that helped him sleep at night, it was the fact that he was different. 

He felt he stood out against the backdrop of Nightmare's walking incarnates of LoVe. He wasn’t like those who had willingly made the dark and depraved choices that had led them here with glee filled smiles, he hadn’t purposefully and willingly destroyed the only hope he had. Axe had been ignored and tossed aside by the ones that should’ve been his friends, his reasoning and logic had been forcibly given backseat to others' panic and selfishness...He’d been hurt.

He was no better than the others, but he wasn’t nearly as bad.

The taller monster threw a glance at Killer, who looked at him with sockets so empty of life that literal hate leaked from them, to raise a brow of his own. He knew he wasn’t like the duplicate he currently stared down, a murderer just for the hell of it, and if he was asked he wouldn’t hesitate to say he never cared to be so. There was nothing in all of existence that could ever make him _enjoy_ dusting his loved ones.

Axe took a bite of his sandwich and spoke around it. “Surprised you didn’t tag along.”

Killer snorted before waving a hand dismissively as he looked away, his voice a lazy sigh as he shrugged. “Nah, someone had to guard the house right?” 

Axe wasn’t fooled for a second. Killer never passed up the chance to kidnap or maim someone like a dog called to heel by it’s master. 

Which only meant one thing. 

“On the outs with Nightmare again?” 

Killer didn’t respond, but his reaction was all the answer Axe needed as the other monster’s grin stretched wider and strained, Killer’s tell and poor attempt to hold in his frustration. Killer was always a crybaby when Nightmare left him behind. Axe huffed lightly before tossing the rest of his meal between his teeth and chuckling. 

“Sucks to be you. Maybe don’t be a sarcastic asshole and he wouldn’t _ground_ you.”

Killer retaliated by snatching up the remote and changing the channel, his sockets going flat at the tops as his grin hitched in a silent victory. Axe hated whenever the television got stolen from him, but he was tired anyways, and just for appearances sake he groused dully, “I was watching that.”

Killer predictably ignored him. 

His lids grew heavy and went half mast as the channel Killer picked showed a series of old school black and white cartoons. It mildly interested Axe as to why this alter seemed to like silent films and the like but it wasn’t enough to make him ask. Maybe the guy just liked to watch something he could make his own commentary on.

No wait, that was something Dusty would probably do. 

The other psychopath always had too many voices going in his head not to have his own science theater on prompt, and with his forgetfulness something like what they were watching now was probably like gold. You didn’t need to remember what was said in silent shows, they were easy enough to follow with only a glance.

Which probably explained why said monster had suddenly appeared behind the couch. His mismatched eyelights boring into the screen before muttering in a bored monotone, “Ah, this is a rerun. The cat dies at the end.”

Killer groaned and shot Dusty a glare. “Do you always have to take the fun out of it by spoiling shit?” 

“The cat doesn’t die, he gets flattened with a hammer and walks it off.” Axe huffed as he sunk further into the sofa and yawned. 

Killer was unamused as he sneered at him before responding with a disappointed snort, “Might as well have died, it would have been a better ending. Humans suck at entertainment.” 

As if the walking hate fountain even knew what good comedy was. 

Axe shook his skull. 

Personally he liked this show even if he had seen it more than a hundred times, more so in color.

Killer could go jump off a bridge. 

Unexpectedly the couch shifted, and with the exhaustion in his bones having dulled his senses it came as a shock to his system to feel a subtle brush against his shoulder. Axe gritted his teeth to keep from flinching, the effort immediately setting him on edge as his maroon eye flared and snapped over to Dusty contemptuously as he settled in beside him. 

He narrowed his sockets, he was not one for being touched, everyone knew that. However the other skeleton was completely unfazed by his reaction, he didn’t even seem to notice it, if anything he was entranced by the screen and appeared to sink into the sofa cushions just as Axe had done while tucking his grin into the scarf around his neck.

Axe thought about summoning his choice of weapon, but the sight of the red fabric left him shivering in place instead. 

The sight of the alter's grotesque ‘tribute’ to his dead brother was always unnerving, and always drained Axe of any hostile intent instantly. 

It never failed to remind him of his brother back home.

He tilted his broken skull thoughtfully and instead shifted over an inch for more space, not bothering to try and hide the obvious disdain at the closeness. With a small huff he rested the side of his skull in hand as he planted his elbow into the arm of the couch and tried to ignore the faint itch in his arm from the unwelcome contact.

Axe didn’t see as Dusty’s eyelights rolled over to him, catching the movement, but panned right back to the show.

The cat was just about to slam a jar over the little grey mouse when Axe felt yet another prod against his shoulder, this one more solid, and filled with an attention seeking intent that nearly had his bones vibrating. 

He frowned and raised his skull to peer at the hood clad monster.

At first Axe thought he was imagining it but the closer he looked, the more easily he noticed that Dusty had scooted over and, oddly, leaned slightly towards him. He flared his nasal cavity as he glared down at where the murderer’s jacket wrinkled against his shoulder, the worn material of his own caving beneath the strength of the dust stained fabric as if unable to stand against it. 

The sight unsettled him.

With a hiss through his teeth Axe pressed further into the arm of the couch, trying vainly to gain some more room between them, only for Dusty to casually drop against him like a ragdoll. 

He went stiff as a board.

...What the hell?

“Hey, _buddy_ ,” Dusty flickered his eyelights up, honing in on Axe’s cyclopean stare with a soul penetrating perception that made the other fidget, even as the look he gave came across impassive from behind the vermillion fabric. 

Axe clenched a hand. “Do you fuck--”

_“What are you fools doing?”_

Axe was cut short as Nightmare spawned right in front of the three of them, his words echoing loudly like a boom mic as his form took shape from seemingly nowhere. Rivets of Vantablack ink smelling of rot sweetened apples sprang up from the seals in the stone work floor, breaking apart like water droplets in reverse as they built up on each other, until their leader's imposing statue solidified with a frown tilting his perpetual grin. 

Axe tried not to cringe, he always found Nightmare’s form of transportation unpleasant. Each time he had to travel by the tainted sludge it always felt as if he was reliving his worst moments, his sins crawling on him like the filth as it slithered between his joints, and he was sure it felt exactly the same for the others. If their own strained looks were anything to go by as they all stared at the shorter monster.

Nightmare’s turquoise colored stare turned to the television where it narrowed before falling into an uninterested grimace. 

“This show, but of course you’d be watching something so time consuming and meaningless.”

“No offence _boss_ , but at least we can understand this.” Nightmare looked at Killer with a glare before Dusty let out an ugly snort. “Riiiight, what was that show called? Princess Weiyoung?” 

Axe said nothing as Nightmare’s aura thickened and his corrupted magic surged enough to make the air around them crackle with repressed energy. 

Dusty and Killer had been around the dark lord long enough they knew what limits to push and just how far to push them, and did it often. Though he found it humorous and never failed to laugh, Axe simply wanted to get by with napping and eating between jobs without having to be impaled by those tentacles again, without being suspended in an endless loop of punishment, even if he knew he deserved it.

He shifted his gaze to the floor.

“It has more substance than anything you uncultured swine tend to watch.” Nightmare’s exceedingly calm tone was enough warning to quiet the others as he stared them down, his lone eyelight a silent dare no one wished to challenge. He lingered on Axe's averted gaze for only a moment, but it was enough to evoke a shiver from the seated duplicate. Satisfied by their quick compliance his frown returned to his trademark smirk. 

“Anyway, I have a new job for you three. Error found an interesting AU I want you to investigate.”

Axe pretended to be interested as he glanced up and droned, “Is it another positive AU?” 

“On the contrary, it’s a negative one, but the inhabitants are able to contaminate foreign trespassers and convert them into their own code, trapping them in their AU like a disease. I want you to figure out how that works.” 

Killer perked up as Dusty gave a bored glare, Axe though scowled. He didn’t like the thought of being turned into an unwilling inhabitant of any AU or timeline aside from his own. It was bad enough he was a pawn, but he didn’t view himself as expendable. 

“Finish whatever business you three have and meet in the lounge, and no, that doesn’t include finishing this garbage.” 

Axe tensed along with Dusty and Killer as Nightmare melted and then dissolved into a puddle. Just as horrifying as his coming was his going. The muck of his being broke apart like dried clay as it fell and dissolved into dust like charcoal, quickly vanishing in an updraft of wind. Not a single trace was left behind when all was said and done hinting that the demon had even been in the room with them in the first place.

To no one's surprise and with a prep to his step Killer pushed off the couch and hurried away to whatever location he kept his collection of ‘toys’ the moment they were alone. Like a toddler about to experience his first theme park. 

At least someone was happy Axe supposed.

Sighing he picked up the remote and shut off the tv with a click before giving Dusty the side eye. The guy was still staring at the screen, dead and lifeless, like a mannequin, and it was enough to make him shudder for the second time that day. Just how far off the rails would he have had to go to end up like that he wondered. Was he even that far off from the alter? 

One single human’s decision is what kept them so decidedly different from the other, just one very wrong and twisted moment of desperation on his part that Axe never dared dream of even in his most rampant of rages. He tried to brush off the feeling of morbid curiosity and nausea induced self-loathing, and tried to distract himself by thinking that Dusty was having another moment where he’d quickly forgotten that Nightmare had just given them orders. 

Reluctantly, he decided to break the others disturbing reverie. “Hey.” 

“Yes.” 

Axe frowned before looking at him in confusion. “Yes...what?”

Dusty didn’t miss a beat. “I do fuck.”

Axe’s sockets widened in surprise, completely lost and caught off guard by the statement, before finally remembering what he’d been meaning to say earlier. 

He couldn’t help it, he let out a deep guffaw that turned into a throaty bellow, completely missing the way Dusty’s attention shifted to him. Both mismatched eyelights brightening as Axe collected himself and wiped away a magical tear. It took a moment of him trying to catch his breathe before he was finally able to form words.

“Nah, pal I wasn’t asking you a question earlier.” Axe met Dusty’s sockets with his own and instantly sobered at the sudden intensity he saw there. 

It was like looking at a marksman who’d just found the perfect target, and was simply deciding at what angle to take the shot. 

The trigger was suddenly pulled. “You’re cute, y’know that?”

Axe jolted in his seat and looked at him, suddenly silent and full of apprehension, as the words sunk in like the sharp end of a blade. 

Dusty lifted his cruel grin free of his scarf to shoot him a sultry and hot smirk, the intent behind it thick and rolling. 

Welp, this was awkward as hell.

“...Don’t be a freak.”

Dusty cackled manically. “Too late for that.”

“Dude...I’m literally you...just from another timeline…” Axe reasoned with an uncomfortable glower at the looming double.

“That so?” Dusty’s eyelights panned his form before flickering back up and giggling wickedly, the way in which he did it somehow bringing a flare of magic to Axe’s cheeks. He didn’t like just how lustful the look in Dusty’s sockets abruptly turned nor how seductive the other’s tone became, how teasing it was, as he drawled, “Then what am I thinking?”

Axe rolled his sockets as he looked at him. “Probably something involving death and blood.”

Dusty’s smirk was crazed as he let out a sharp laugh before standing up with his hands in his pockets, his mismatched eyelights brightening and grin sharpening as if he’d won the lottery. Axe felt magic well up in the back of his non-existent throat, even as an odd tingling sensation rolled down his femurs.

“Heh, I’m wondering if your bones are similar to mine, just as scarred, just as sensitive~” Dusty cooed lecherously.

Axe’s sockets widened as he leaned closer to him, his eyelights once more ghosting his body but in deliberate slowness, appraising him. Axe actually fought to repress a shiver as more magic flooded his zygomatic bones and he felt his magic grow cold.

“Looks like you weren’t expecting to hear that.” Dusty’s smirk dipped, somehow looking almost soft at the edges. “Sounds to me...like we’re more different than you’d like to think.” 

Red and cerulean locked on his lone maroon. “And you know what they say...opposites attract.” 

Dusty held eye contact long enough that Axe averted his gaze, his unease so potent that the air turned stifling, and he was sure Dusty could taste it like a fine wine with how he walked away laughing, smug and disturbingly satisfied.

Slowly Axe looked up to stare after him speechless. He had never been flirted with before, not like that and by someone...kind of sober. The last one he’d expected to do such a thing was one of his alters, let alone the one that was the poster child of insanity. Well maybe he should’ve expected _that_ but Dusty had never once shown an interest within the last year they’d known each other. 

Just what was going on?

He couldn’t help but wonder if Dusty was bored or something, maybe on one of his crazed spirals that usually ended up with him locked away in the attic because even _Nightmare_ couldn’t handle being around the psychotic for more than ten minutes at a time when he was like that.

...Or maybe he was just being an asshole...

Axe fought to ignore the rapid thrumming in his ribs as he stood and took a shortcut.


	2. Love Is A Battlefield

Axe usually loved his isolation, but now he was becoming wary of it.

Almost every time that Axe turned around Dusty would be right there to greet him with a teasing, almost _damning_ , smirk, or with a carefully measured gaze tactfully half hidden in that crimson scarf he always wore. 

Dusty wasn’t exactly relentless, but he was stubborn, and seemed to only be getting bolder whenever they crossed paths. If Axe didn’t know better it was almost as if the lunatic took his snide and often sarcastic remarks as encouragement.

It was to the point that Axe started panning the corridors and leering at dark corners just to be sure the crazed double wasn’t lurking in wait for him with those mismatched eyelights that all but screamed arousal, and that tilted lopsided grin that started to leave an uncomfortable lurch in his chest. 

Axe had even gone so far as to start finding reasons for hanging around with Killer, hell even annoying Cross when the black and white clone got in the mood to visit the dark dimension, and that was saying something given the smaller monster’s constantly gloomy mood.

Seriously, he was too much of a downer even for Axe.

It was honestly becoming a hassle, one that he could’ve ignored if it weren’t for the fact that Dusty had already crossed a very thin line by _pressing up against his coccyx_ when he’d been bent over and skull deep in the fridge looking for food just the other day. 

_And when he’d felt something impossibly hard, abnormally hot, through the cloth of his shorts-_

It had been worse than when Dusty had gotten the fucking nerve to steal his soda straight from his hand, and had even dared to hold it hostage telling Axe he wanted to hear him ask for it back 'nicely’. 

As if Axe was going to _beg_ for his own damned drink.

At the time he’d simply rolled his eyelight at the other and had gotten another one, not missing the way Dusty had chuckled as he’d casually downed the rest of the beverage without once breaking eye contact. 

The action had disturbed him with how lewd it was, and had shot such a deep blush to his skeletal cheeks, that he’d choked when Dusty had hummed something about indirect kissing while licking his teeth.

Honestly Axe didn’t know why he hadn’t instinctively bit him like he had Killer.

_Maybe because the weirdo would’ve liked it._

It kind of shamed him that it took such bold actions to get it through his cracked skull that this wasn’t the other simply teasing or trying to have some sort of depraved fun at his expense, that it wasn’t something that would easily go away with time and enough apathy on his part to successfully drown a whale.

No, Dusty unfortunately was serious about getting into his pants.

Well he had received the message loud and clear, and Axe wasn’t the slightest bit interested.

He’d spent hours, days, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong and may have unintentionally given the impression he was receptive to the whole thing, but no matter how much he thought about it he couldn’t remember a single instance where he could’ve made such an obvious fuck up. 

At first he blamed Nightmare, his timing the other day could’ve been the misunderstanding when Axe hadn’t been allowed to finish telling off the walking dust mote. But that reasoning was thin at best and just an excuse at worst.

Maybe, in hindsight, it was the fact he hadn’t actually told Dusty directly that he wasn’t interested and had instead chosen to ignore it all and casually brush it off just as he’d done for most of the misfortunes in his life...

But then again would that have stopped someone as mad and as (ugh) determined as Dusty?

Axe let out a frustrated growl and tried to shake the thoughts away as he slowly made his way to Nightmare’s private kitchen. 

It was banned to him and the other duplicates, but that was exactly why he was going there. The chances were significantly less for the suddenly perverted and hellbent alter to sneak up and corner him if he was in a place he least expected.

At least that was the thought.

He quickly learned just how wrong he was as he was pulling the fixings for a sandwich into his arms, humming low in his non-existent throat as he shuffled everything around in his arms to balance it better before standing up to shut the fridge door with his foot. 

Dusty’s amused stare greeted him in the reflection of the chrome the moment the door shut.

“Fuck-!” Axe startled and dropped everything but the bread and ketchup. 

There was silence as he stared down bitterly at the shattered mayonnaise jar and scattered pickle slices while Dusty softly chuckled, his low, ill-used and raspy baritone, echoing around the kitchen and creepily impersonating the reaper’s footsteps as it rang in Axe’s acoustics.

“...y’know, if you’re trying to avoid me, going where food is isn’t the best strategy.” 

No it wasn’t, but Axe was damned if he was going to start avoiding food and a kitchen in general given the choice even if he was disturbed by the other’s persistence. He’d starved for seven years, he refused to do it again if he had the option.

With an annoyed grunt he bent down and started to pick up what he could.

_What a fucking waste…_

“Didn’t know you knew what a hint was Dusty, do us both a favor and take one.”

There was no response as Axe finished picking everything up and slowly began sitting it down on an available counter, his expression purposefully apathetic as he lazily moved about to make his meal. 

The thought entered his head that maybe if he pretended not to pay attention Dusty would get bored enough and eventually give up, he was a ‘Sans’ after all, and they were notorious for not lifting a finger till the last second, for not putting in the effort unless it was absolutely needed.

Apparently the duplicate proved the exception to the rule.

Axe fought not to flinch or visibly react as the alter leaned his back against the counter he was using, humming thoughtfully as Axe resolutely kept his gaze on his bread as he spread the mayo and ketchup across it delicately, and finally tucking his grin into the neck of his scarf as his sockets lidded.

"I think...that you think that you're better than us.” Axe tensed and stilled, his butter knife frozen halfway across a slice of bread, as he grimaced. But Dusty either didn’t notice or intentionally ignored it. “But you know what?" 

Dusty leaned in just a fraction away from his skull, his proximity and warm breath forcing a greyish blue tinged flush to Axe’s bones as he forced his gaze up to stare the other down with defiance blazing in his lone red orb.

"You're just as much of a _freak_ as the rest of us."

Axe was quiet, before speaking in a dulled tone and shrugging his shoulders. “Never said I wasn’t, but at least I’m not _messed up_.”

“Aren’t you though?” Dusty challenged.

“Look pal, you’re the only one here hitting on _himself_. No one else is interested or cares.” Axe forced out through gritted teeth as he looked away and started forcibly slapping his sandwich together. 

A sudden grip on his wrist had him looking up angrily at Dusty.

Without breaking eye contact Dusty slowly reached forward and gave two sharp tugs to pull Axe’s sleeve down his arm, exposing his bones from the tips of his phalanx to the start of his humerus. 

“...what are you doing?” Axe whispered thickly.

A lifted grin and hot pulse of discolored eyelights was the only response he got right before Dusty made a show of lifting one phalange and, starting from the Lunate Carpal, languidly dragged it down from the tip of the Radius, just outside the space between where it met the other’s Ulna. 

Axe couldn't’ help the flinch he gave as hot ice ran down his arm and shot straight to his spine.

Dusty chuckled lowly as the blush that had previously been fading came back ten fold to Axe’s face, and watched greedily as the pinprick of a pupil in his socket expanded wide and full moon round. He enjoyed the way the other shivered as he reached the bottom joint and continued his sensual trace right back up to the lunate carpal again.

Axe’s breath started coming in heavier, gusting thick and ragged through his nasal socket as he looked down just in time to see Dusty daringly pass the lunate and circle around the capitate, applying just the slightest bit of pressure against it that it made Axe dizzy. 

“You’re really sensitive in your hands, I’m not.” Dusty commented absently before dropping into a deep husky bite. “Still not interested?”

Axe tried to gather himself but there was a pressure gradually building in his pubis and his patella were struggling just to keep him upright as it was as shivers continued to burn down his back and gradually up his ribs.

The feeling was so foreign, and surprisingly _good_.

Dusty abruptly turned him and pinned him to his chest, he had only about an inch or two of height over Axe due to the massive amount of LV he possessed, and it was more than enough to keep the other pinned and supported as his hands slid under Axe’s shirt. 

“Let’s see, how about...here?” His fingers scraped lightly against the very edge of Axe’s sternum, right along the top of the xiphisternal joint and into the tiny crook where his costal margin nearly touched his xiphoid process, sending a flush of heat and a bone rattling shudder through the broken monster.

He’d never been so focused on the specific names of his bones before as he was now, but it was grounding, calming and keeping him from losing his mind at what exactly was happening and just how good it felt.

Dusty chuckled, his hot breath cascading down the side of his face. “Bingo~”

Axe didn’t expect Dusty to be so well versed in how to draw a reaction out of him. 

“How…” 

He couldn’t bring himself to finish his question, instead he arched his spine. Dusty had moved his hand down and under, the very tip of his phalange tracing circles into the raw and porous texture along the inside of his sternum, from body to angle, in slow teasing motions.

“Lots of practice.” Dusty responded as he sprayed his hand along the entire length of Axe’s sternum and manubrium, his fingers lacing and hooking on his clavicular notches and the intercostal spaces his ribs offered to gently pull him back further against him.

The moment Axe felt his tender processes press into clothed ribs he flushed _red_.

All of the unfamiliar sensations and the concentration he’d been desperately holding onto weren’t enough to blind him to the meaning and odd sensation of the sudden bulge against the back of his sacrum, and what exactly it meant.

Dusty noticed how Axe tensed and wrapped an arm around his torso to keep him in place as he used his other hand to run a gentle trace down the length of his thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, earning a muffled groan as he lingered on each vertebral disk to press against them, and ending just on the top of Axe’s left iliac crest where he gripped it tight enough the tips of his fingers pleasantly stung the bone. 

“Something the matter?”

There was no way in hell Dusty needed to know Axe was a virgin.

“Yep, I have a parasite groping me.” How he found the strength not to stutter amazed him, because even now the pressure in his pubis, where his symphysis was, burned with an urge that nearly made him drool at Dusty’s contact.

The murderer cocked a brow. “Last I checked I didn’t wear sunglasses...do you want me too?” 

Axe found the strength to pull away as he turned to face him with a disbelieving frown at the implication. Dusty met it with a half lidded and amused gaze, his arms loose but still encircling the other. 

Axe’s frown turned into a strained grimace. “What makes you think that _that’s_ better?”

“Everyone has their kinks.”

”...you really are a freak.”

Dusty hummed as he leaned close enough their mouths nearly touched. “Guilty as charged.”

Axe’s soul gave a leap he refused to acknowledge as he gave Dusty a hard shove backwards, breaking his weak hold on him. With a giggle Dusty let him and merely shoved his hands back into his pockets unfazed with the harsh manhandling as he tilted his skull thoughtfully.

“Not into roleplay I see.”

Axe was actually disgusted with him.

“Fuck you.”

For the first time Dusty’s smirk dropped into a neutral line as he leveled his gaze at him. There was an air of seriousness about the crazed creature that Axe wasn’t used to as Dusty drawled dryly. “I’m trying to.”

Axe didn’t take it well. “Leave me alone.”

They both stared at each other silently, each of them on guard and watchful of what the other would do or say with shoulders tensed and sockets leering. It had been a long time since he’d found himself facing off with Dusty like this, the last time being when they’d first met after Nightmare had brought him to the dead realm.

It was an uncomfortable realization just how safe he’d felt here despite the company.

Dusty slowly let his shoulders slump and eyed him as if looking at an annoying gnat that refused to be squashed. The irritation and weariness confusing Axe. It was easier to assume Dusty wasn’t mad but vexed, spurned. The reaction like one would have when fighting with a lover.

But that’s not what they were to each other.

“I’m getting tired Axe.” He huffed. “I can only _play nice_ so long.”

It had been a week since he’d started this bullshit, and in all that time Dusty had spoken to him at most three times. Once with the soda, once on that brief recon mission Nightmare had sent them on to ask for a mission reminder (it had been so boring but Axe had been glad it was over quickly), and then now. 

To Axe it hadn’t been that long at all even with the constant irritation, and it made him seethe with resentment that the other had the fortune to not realize that. “I’m not interested in your _games_.” 

Dusty snorted before sighing, his grin once more tucked within the ring of his deceased brother’s scarf, and abruptly vanished without a trace. 

Axe blinked slowly once but continued to stare at where the duplicate had been standing, holding his breath as he waited for a possible attack or confrontation, before letting out a huff. 

Dusty had probably gone back to his room. 

It took awhile for Axe to relax again and finally get to actually eating his food, the faint lingering sensation of Dusty’s skilled hands still burning in his bones and the back of his mind like a persistent throb as he ripped a vicious chunk out of his meal.

Seriously he couldn’t help but wonder why the guy was so obsessed with him in the first place.

“ **Axe**.”

He nearly choked as the dark lord’s deathly quiet voice made him swallow harshly. Slowly he turned to face Nightmare who pointedly glanced down at the small mess still on the kitchen floor before dragging his singular cyan eyelight back up to him accusingly.

“Uh, this isn’t what it looks like?” He tried.

Nightmare’s grin stretched sadistically. “By all means, do tell me what exactly this is then.”

And he realized he couldn't, Nightmare wouldn't believe him, and if he did that still wouldn't be reason enough for the invasion of his personal kitchen.

...Damnit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title take: How to make learning anatomy fun


End file.
